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Carmen Elly Wilkerson, an award-winning writer and director, was born in Detroit and raised in Downers Grove, Illinois. She is the niece of Ernest Elly, the renowned jazz drummer for Ray Charles. Originally an epidemiologist, Carmen shifted her career to storytelling, driven by a desire to create meaningful change.
She earned her Master of Fine Arts from The American Film Institute's Directing Program, where she also received the Hollywood Foreign Press Award for Directing. Carmen directed A Guy Walks Into A Bar, featuring Fred Savage and Robert Pine, which won her a Director's Guild Award and a Cine Eagle Award. After its television debut on Showtime, Variety described the film as a "mini cult classic." That same year, Kodak named her one of 16 filmmakers to watch. As a writer, Carmen trained through The Guy Hanks Marvin Miller Screenwriting Fellowship and was twice a finalist in the Sundance Writing Lab. She also completed a year in the CBS Director Training Program, shadowing veteran TV directors Dennis Smith and Oz Scott on NCIS and CSI-NY. Her 2016 short film, The Reunion, starring Lex Scott Davis, is available on AspireTV. Her 2019 short, The Peck Situation, produced by Films With a Purpose, won Best Short, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Ensemble at The Show Low Film Festival.
In 2022, Carmen's feature screenplay The Gown Man was a finalist in the Women in Film/Black List Feature Residency Program. In 2023, she was selected to direct A Christmas Call to Action for Exodus Entertainment.
